The Princess and the Dragon
by Sjeherazade
Summary: A mixture of "The Princess and the Dragon" and "Sleeping Beauty"


The princess and the dragon

Once upon a time there was a legendary Princess who lived in a giant castle with a mean old Dragon guarding her. She had been enchanted by an evil spell and was locked in into the highest tower of the castle.

The great beast spent most of his time lounging upon the vast piles of gold and jewels that filled the castle.

There were several of prophecies that told about a prince that would someday come to save the princess, but they were all too mysterious for anyone to understand.

But one day, a dust cloud that was really a man in armour upon a horse was seen in the horizon. Her knight had finally come!

The Princess was still sleeping and didn't know about it but her knight gradually approached the gate of the castle. She wasn't able to hear his powerful knock at the door far below.

The knight pushed open the castle doors and rushed bravely into the castle where the Princess was asleep. When he saw the piles upon piles of gold and jewels he turned and looked in every direction.

The Dragon awoke from his slumber and beat its wings furiously when the prince, Prince Cloud, entered, tossing treasure in every direction and nearly knocking the prince Cloud off his feet. But the prince was strong, as well as brave and clever, and charged towards the Dragon with his sword held high over his head. The Dragon breathed deeply and fire engulfed the prince, and then his horse was burned into ashes.

The Prince rushed away, desperate with fear that his sleeping princess had been slain by the terrible Dragon. When he finally found a hiding place, the smoke from the Dragon's breath was clearing over the stacks of treasure but he knew that the dragon wasn't about to give up.

He wasn't strong enough to beat the dragon, and according to the prophecy this dragon had to beaten in a fight, he actually was very clever but the prophecy has told, what it had told. His cleverness wouldn't help him… The prophecy… what had it said…?

_The prince will beat the dragon in fight, no cleverness and no man can help him, but he will not have to fight alone. _

The prince sat back against the stone that he had hid himself behind; he forced himself to think… The princess was asleep and could only wake up if he kissed her… The princess!

He carefully watched the dragon over the stone; it was looking in another direction and couldn't see him so he sneaked away to the tower.

He beat the door open with his sword and run up the stairs to the room were the princess was sleeping. He opened this door with the sword too.

He found the princess very beautiful with long black hair. Even if she was quite pale from the lack of sunshine, but right now that didn't matter. He ran over to the princess and quickly gave her the kiss. Then she opened her eyes and watched him.

"I'm prince Cloud, the dragon is still alive! I need your help!"

"I see!" she answered and stepped up from the bed, ran across the room and got out a sword from a shelf.

Then the dragon suddenly saw them in the window. He roared and prepared itself to breathe fire at them.

They both run towards the window and jumped out, then they landed on their feet and attacked the Dragon again. He swung his sword against the Dragon's scales over and over again, but he couldn't cut through the Dragon's powerful armour and eventually he began to get very tired and finally he fell.

The Princess knew that her knight would never be able to slay the Dragon by attacking his hard scales, and she realized that he didn't know the Dragon's weakness.

"Brave knight," she yelled to him, struggling to be heard over the noise of the battle. "Strike the Dragon on his belly; that's his only weakness!"

Then she run up to his side and began to cut the belly herself. Prince Cloud jumped on his feet and run over to help the Princess and they both plunged their swords into the dragon's heart.

The mighty Dragon collapsed to the ground; all of the strength had gone out of him. The Princess and prince Cloud was jubilant -- the Dragon was dead!

They ran to the each other and threw their arms around each other.

"You saved me!" she said and gave him a smile and hugged him through his armour again. "I knew you'd come and slay the Dragon and save me, I always knew it!"

"I didn't, I mean you saved me too! I knew about the prophecy, my brothers have always told be that I wasn't brave enough to save a princess…"

"Well you did!" the Princess said and stepped back from him."

"I did! I saved a princess that can make sure that my brothers would never dare to pick on me again" he said and smiled at the sight of the princess who was standing in front of him.

She wasn't like the princesses his brothers had saved, she was a princess that had helped him to kill a dragon, and she still held the sword, which was covered with the dragon's blood, in her hand. "I have searched thee library over and over again for princesses that was in trouble to prove them wrong… What's your name by the way?"

"You have searched for me in the library and doesn't know my name?" she looked at him for a moment. "Anyway I'm Princess Tifa!"

"Tifa!"

Then he stopped looking at her and looked at the horse he had arrived on…

"Well, I don't think my horse can carry us home anymore," prince Cloud said, and shook his head.

"We don't need a horse, let's walk through the forest. I have been sleeping so long, and I love the summer nights."

"Well, it's not much left of the summer, it's august. So I guess that if you want to see anything of the summer this year, the best way is to walk all the way…" And then they began to walk.


End file.
